


Can't Wait (To Burn It to the Ground)

by boxparade



Series: All Our Yesterdays: The Codas [9]
Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Family, Grief/Mourning, Kid Fic, M/M, Military, Temporary Character Death, Wedding Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:06:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon finds Spencer sitting in the middle of their living room, staring at the coffee table like there’s a live grenade lying on it. (He carefully does <i>not</i> think about what he would do if there were actually a live grenade on his coffee table.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Wait (To Burn It to the Ground)

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the [All Our Yesterdays](http://archiveofourown.org/works/335810) universe.
> 
> Um...I suppose it could be stand-alone? I don't know. Just go read it if you haven't already. I don't think the codas are going to stop anytime soon.

Brendon gets the afternoon off from Pete—something about an epic popsicle battle—and finds Spencer sitting in the middle of their living room, staring at the coffee table like there’s a live grenade lying on it. (Brendon carefully does not think about what he would do if there were _actually_ a live grenade on his coffee table.)

“Hey,” he says, a little confused, and Spencer practically jumps out of his seat. He looks up at Brendon with wide, startled eyes and says “Um. Hi.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Pete let us go home early.”

“Oh. It’s—” he looks at the clock and seems surprised to find that time exists at all. “Right.”

Brendon can tell he’s a little off, and maybe a little shaky, and his hands hang limply between his knees and Brendon wonders what the hell is so fascinating about that coffee table. “You alright?” he asks, because if Spencer’s having some sort of trouble with something, Brendon wants to know about it and maybe try to help. He could just be spacing out, but then again, maybe not.

“Yeah, it’s—” Spencer starts, then shifts direction. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I just—never mind.”

“Spencer,” Brendon says softly, because he doesn’t want to sound condescending, like he’s talking to a timid rabbit or something, but he doesn’t want to push Spencer past his limit, either, because that just ends with the both of them screaming. But they agreed to talk about shit like this, and be honest with each other, and try to keep each other from losing their shit.

He sits down on the couch next to Spencer, close but not touching, and looks on the coffee table. In a small space clear from toys or paperwork or lost watches and keys, lies a single, plain gold ring. Brendon recognizes it as the cheap one they bought for Spencer, so that he could leave his real ring safe at the house, and still have something to take with him overseas. Around Spencer’s ring finger, where he’s started fiddling with his hands again, is the real wedding ring. It’s the one with the inscription inside that they ordered last-minute and picked up at a jeweler about an hour before they got married—real gold, and nice, even if it wasn’t anything fancy or overpriced. The matching one is around Brendon’s finger still, and he feels the full weight of every ounce of gold right about then.

“I don’t know what to do with that one,” Spencer nods towards the coffee table, at the cheap gold-plated ring that looks so small and meaningless, just sitting there without anywhere to go. Brendon thinks, for a brief moment, if this is the most Spencer has had to freak out about in the last week, then he’s doing pretty well.

“We could keep it somewhere safe. Put it in the safe or in a box in the attic or something,” Brendon offers, because when he thinks about it, he has no idea what to do with the substitute ring, either.

Spencer shakes his head. “It’s too—I don’t wanna have to think about it all the time.”

“O-kay,” Brendon says slowly. He doesn’t really understand what Spencer means about that, but if he doesn’t want the ring in a box somewhere, then they’re not going to put the ring in a box somewhere. It’s Spencer’s ring, anyway. He can do whatever the hell he wants with it.

Spencer chews at his lip and fiddles with his real ring for a good, solid minute before Brendon ventures at another option.

“We could put it on a chain or something, so you can wear it as a necklace?”

Spencer shakes his head again. “I have this one now,” he flips his hand over, still twirling the ring around his finger. “And I don’t want…it’s my military ring. I’m not in the military anymore, I’m not—it’s not me, anymore. I don’t need it.”

“Okay,” Brendon agrees gently, because this is Spencer’s decision. And because he doesn’t really know what to do. What the hell do you do with an extra wedding band, anyway? What the hell is Brendon supposed to do with the folded flag that they gave to Jake at Spencer’s funeral? What the hell is anyone supposed to do with all these objects—things that hold so much meaning, but are rendered completely irrelevant or outdated?

“This is stupid,” Spencer says suddenly, standing up in a flurry. “This doesn’t matter. It’s not even impor—”

Brendon wraps gentle fingers around Spencer’s closed fist, the one that has his real wedding ring on it. Spencer’s hands are shaking. “It is,” Brendon says simply, and feels Spencer deflate.

They both take a moment to breathe; stop the shaking and the breathlessness. “What do you think we should do with it?” Spencer asks openly, turning to look at Brendon, like Brendon might actually have any of the answers, here.

Brendon laughs, mostly at himself and these situations he keeps finding himself in. “I don’t know, Spence.” He shrugs. “Hell, I can’t even figure out what to do with that damned flag.”

“What flag?”

Brendon looks up at Spencer, wondering if he’s joking, because really? The flag? _The_ flag. It is, quite possibly, the most significant object Brendon has from this whole mess, and Spencer doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. “The flag,” he says simply, waving a hand in the general direction of Jake’s bedroom, where the framed triangle of red, white, and blue has taken to living on the top of his dresser. Sometimes Brendon wonders if Jake even knows it’s there, but he’s been afraid to move it in case he does know, and then freaks out. God knows the kids have been handling this a lot better than all the adults. He’s hoping it’ll hold.

Spencer raises a curious eyebrow at him.

“The flag,” Brendon repeats, a bit less confidently. “The one they gave us. When you—At the funeral. They handed it to Jake. We framed it. There’s a goddamned plaque, I don’t—”

“Bren,” Spencer warns, and that’s their “whoa, slow down” tone. Brendon stops talking takes a few breaths, and looks up at Spencer again. “They gave you a flag?” he asks.

Brendon nods. “It’s customary. At military funerals. They give it to the next of kin, as—I don’t know, it’s supposed to make people feel better about their loved one being dead. They tried to give it to Ginger, and then me, but Jake—it’s Jake’s. He carried it around for, like, a week. I can’t believe it didn’t come apart, what the hell does the military teach people, anyway? Folding flags hardly seems like a good use of—”

“Brendon,” Spencer warns again, and Brendon shakes his head.

“Right, sorry,” he says, and then nods towards Jake’s room. “You’ve never seen it?”

“No,” Spencer says slowly. Like he’s trying to suggest that maybe he doesn’t want to. Like he’s going to avoid Jake’s room for as long as possible because of that flag. Brendon doesn’t blame him.

“But anyway,” Brendon moves on, before he forces an answer out of Spencer that Spencer doesn’t want to give. “I don’t know what to do with all this… _stuff._ The flag, your ring, we still have some food from the neighborhood wives, after the funeral. Luckily, most of it got old awhile ago, so I threw it out, but weirdly enough, I got some canned soup from the Cat Lady and some weird…I don’t even know what it is. There’s just all this _stuff,_ and it all just appeared after you—after. I don’t know what to do with all of it. It’s freaking me out.”

Brendon looks up, suddenly becoming aware of exactly how much he’s been ranting, and Spencer’s got this _look_ on his face. It only lasts for a second before Spencer is devolving into giggles, and Brendon huffs indignantly and asks “What? _What?”_

Spencer calms down enough to get out “You’re scared of the Cat Lady’s soup? Really, Bren?”

“I’m not— That’s not what I said!” He argues, because Spencer started laughing madly again. “I’m not scared of— Oh, would you shut up?” Spencer doesn’t, as expected, but just keeps laughing and laughing, doubling over with tears in the corners of his eyes. Brendon rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous. It’s not even that funny.”

“No, it’s not—” Spencer gasps, and then has to stop to keep laughing. Brendon feels a sly smile pulling at his lips, because Spencer laughing like this is a whole lot rarer than it used to be, but the Spencer says “We’re pathetic,” and Brendon gets it.

And then he starts laughing, because yeah, they kind of are. Spencer is having a mental breakdown about a cheap ring, and Brendon refuses to open one of the cabinets in the kitchen because it’s filled with food from the wake, and none of this has any logical reasoning behind it, and yet here they are. More worried about rings and flags and fucking soup cans than medical bills, or flashbacks, or the kids sleeping at night.

“Oh my god, we’re so dumb,” Brendon gets out, laughing himself silly and clutching to Spencer to stop himself from falling off the couch.

Spencer breathes something between laughs that might be agreement, and they both keep laughing until they have to stop and catch their breath for a minute or two.

“Really?” Brendon asks.

“Really,” Spencer replies, a smile still on his lips.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Brendon lets theweight of those words settle around them, feeling completely ridiculous, but somehow lighter. He wants that to be all they have to say on the subject, and for things to somehow magically work themselves out now that they’ve had a good laugh about it and agreed that their priorities are just a tad off, but that’s not how it works.

“But what _are_ we going to do with all this shit?” He asks, and Spencer huffs a short laugh in response.

“Fuck if I know,” Spencer replies, “You’re the brains in this relationship.”

“What? Then what are you?”

“The brawn, duh.”

Brendon rolls his eyes. “Since when?”

“Since I spent the last two years of my life shooting things and having spitting contests, and being useless for pretty much everything else,” Spencer says as he leans back on the couch, stretching his arms out over the back and shooting another glance at the ring on the coffee table.

“Spitting contests,” Brendon says incredulously.

Spencer nods seriously. “I can spit a whole eight feet now. It’s pretty badass.”

“That’s disgusting,” Brendon says frankly, and Spencer slaps him upside the head and smiles. “And I swear, if I ever catch you teaching this to Jake, no sex for a month.”

“But he might need it!” Spencer argues, furrowing his brow and staring Brendon down like this is the most serious conversation they’ve ever had.

“For what?” Brendon asks skeptically.

“Impressing girls!” Spencer answers promptly, and Brendon raises an eyebrow at Spencer.

“This isn’t Titanic,” Brendon says after a moment, and he can tell that Spencer was saving that reference for just the right time, to prove his point. Brendon grins triumphantly.

“Yeah, well, maybe he’ll enlist,” Spencer says offhandedly, and looks away.

“I’ll kill him first,” Brendon says without hesitation, and Spencer’s eyes snap right back to Brendon’s face, reading him for signs of a joke. Brendon’s not kidding. He doesn’t care what Spencer thinks, he’s never letting Jake within a hundred miles of a war zone. Hell, even Mexico is off limits until all the fighting over drugs calms down.

For a moment, he thinks Spencer is going to fight him on this one, but then his face softens and his shoulders slump and he lets out a breath. “Yeah, I would too.”

Brendon lets out a breath and leans back to press himself along Spencer’s side, sliding into the crook of his arm effortlessly, one arm snaked around Spencer’s back, pressed against the couch. He lets his eyes drift back to the ring on the table, and after a moment of pause, he says “We should throw it into the ocean.”

“Hmm?” Spencer hums, just coming back to the present.

“All the shit. The ring, the flag, whatever. We should just…chuck it all into the ocean. Like in Titanic.” The more Brendon thinks about it, the more it feels right. Sure, it’s clichéd as hell—but it’s not like there’s anything else they can do with all of it. Neither of them want it in the house—would rather just forget the whole two years altogether—and just throwing it out seems wrong, somehow. Insulting.

“I thought real life wasn’t like Titanic,” Spencer says after a moment, a hint of humor in his voice.

“Yeah, well,” Brendon says, dropping his head down onto Spencer’s shoulder, “Fuck real life.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Linkin Park's new single, "[Burn It Down](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgEKLhvCCVA)".


End file.
